Radiocarbon dating: avoiding errors by avoiding mixed samples

Ashmore, Patrick

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00087901

Cited by 112 publications

(87 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, this is further evidence for the dangers of using charcoal as a dating medium in Atlantic Scotland, because the birch will be approximately the same age as the peat (cf. Ashmore 1999;Church, 2002b). …”

Section: Archaeobotanical Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sourcing fire ash on archaeological sites in the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland, using mineral magnetism

2007

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The application of a new technique developed to identify different fuel sources from ash on nine archaeological sites in the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland is presented. The technique is based on variations observed in the mineral magnetic signatures that derive from the experimental burning of different fuels. The application of the technique is successful, demonstrating both uniformity and diversity in fuel use. A marked continuity of practice in fuel procurement is apparent over thousands of years from seven sites in Lewis, with well-humified peat the dominant fuel source. This implies a long-term stability in the division and tenure of the peatlands. Greater magnetic variation is displayed by the samples from Cladh Hallan, South Uist, and Scatness, Shetland, suggesting more diverse fuel procurement strategies were in operation at these sites. The uniformity and diversity in fuel types also has implications in terms of the residuality of plant remains from the fuel source within archaeobotanical assemblages recovered from the sites.

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Section: Archaeobotanical Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sourcing fire ash on archaeological sites in the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland, using mineral magnetism

2007

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“…In the case of plant remains and charcoals, it is preferable that single entities such as twigs, seeds, and grains are selected for dating, because this avoids the incorporation of non-systematic offsets in age that may arise from the sampling of heartwood, branchwood, or mixed charcoals collected from archaeological sediments (McFadgen 1982;Ashmore 1999). It is also beneficial if individual species can be identified so that the dating of long-lived species can be avoided.…”

Section: Samples and Sampling Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Pretreatment Methods for AMS Radiocarbon Dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (Orau)

Brock

Higham²,

Ditchfield³

et al. 2010

Radiocarbon

742

582

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“…For this to be valid, however, the relative order in which the samples ceased to exchange carbon with the biosphere must be the same as the relative order of dirt in the ground. Samples must thus be not only short-lived, single-entities from a well-understood carbon reservoir (Ashmore 1999), but they must also have been freshly deposited in the context from which they were recovered. The association between the dated event and the target event (Dean 1978) is thus paramount.…”

Section: Chronological Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interwoven Strands for Refining the Chronology of the Neolithic Tell of Vinča-Belo Brdo, Serbia

et al. 2016

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The setting and context of the Vinča-Belo Brdo tellThe great tell or settlement mound of Vinča-Belo Brdo sits directly beside the Danube, a little to the south of Belgrade, Serbia (Fig.1). Its eight metres of Late Neolithic deposits span the later sixth to the mid-fifth millennium cal BC, and are underlain by a Starčevo culture occupation of the earlier sixth millennium cal BC (Tasić et al. 2015; in press). The site has given its name to the Vinča culture (or interaction sphere or network; for convenience and familiarity we use the first term here), which extends through the river valleys of the Danube, its tributaries and their catchments, in the northern and central Balkans, from southernmost Hungary and easternmost Croatia through southern Serbia and Kosovo down to northern Macedonia, and from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina eastwards as far as parts of Transylvania in Romania (Fig. 1). Belo Brdo, near the centre of this distribution, appears to have emerged relatively early in the Vinča culture sequence and was clearly, as the largest known tell of the complex, a place of considerable and enduring significance. This was a time, after the initial emergence of a Neolithic way of life in the region, of the spread, consolidation and diversification of settlement, involving the formation of large settlements and tells; the emergence of both larger communities and distinctive households within such sites; the intensification of subsistence; and changing materiality and the expansion of material networks (Chapman 1981;Kaiser and Voytek 1983;Tasić 2009;Tringham and Krstić 1990;Tripković and Milić 2009;Orton 2010). To understand the initiation, formation, duration and ending of Vinča-Belo Brdo is to grasp some of the major features of the development of Neolithic communities in a major swathe of south-east Europe as a whole.

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Radiocarbon dating: avoiding errors by avoiding mixed samples

Cited by 112 publications

References 1 publication

Sourcing fire ash on archaeological sites in the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland, using mineral magnetism

Sourcing fire ash on archaeological sites in the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland, using mineral magnetism

Current Pretreatment Methods for AMS Radiocarbon Dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (Orau)

Interwoven Strands for Refining the Chronology of the Neolithic Tell of Vinča-Belo Brdo, Serbia

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